Stakes high in Romanian referendum

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

5/15/07, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:42 PM CET

Socialists in the European Parliament have been getting all squeamish about the referendum campaign in Romania as to whether President Traian Basescu should survive an impeachment vote in the Romanian parliament.Basescu is from the centre-right – his party is allied with the European People’s Party – which might go some way to explaining the reaction of Martin Schulz, leader of the socialist MEPs, to a campaign stunt in Bucharest.There were 322 members of the Romanian parliament who voted to impeach Basescu so his supporters responded by planting 322 spikes in one of the city’s parks, with a not-so-subtle message that they should suffer for their action. In Romania, where politics is traditionally full-blooded, few people were shocked – this act of political symbolism at least showed respect for the traditions of Vlad the Impaler, also known as Count Dracula. But Schulz put out a statement saying: “This is an affront to the most central institution of any democratic country, the Parliament.” He added: “The call for a symbolic execution of MPs is completely unacceptable. The Socialist Group strongly condemns this behaviour and calls for the immediate dismantlement of the copies of the torture instruments.” His call was already unnecessary: the spikes disappeared soon after they were installed. Basescu’s supporters accused the opposition Social Democrats of stealing them, but the Social Democrats denied being responsible. Basescu’s opponents accuse him of having sold off the country’s commercial fleet cheaply in the early 1990s when he was transport minister. So one of their favourite stunts is to release into the public fountains of Bucharest fleets of plastic boats bearing the names of the tankers, barges and carriers of yesteryear. The vote is on Saturday (19 May).

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …